


I Am Undone Tonight

by Raphiday



Series: Sense and Sensibility AU [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/F, F/M, I totally diverged from the book here, Infertility, Kuro is a created personality here, LOTS OF BONDAGE, Light BDSM, M/M, Multi, Plaxum is named Polly in this AU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sense and Sensibility AU, Shance Big Bang 2017, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, also OC/OC but they're really just Alibaba/Kougyoku from Magi, also there will be lots of smut in this story, and there are some scenes dealing with war, former Lance/Lotor, it wasn't a healthy relationship at all, mild Matt/Thace, mild Nyma/Shay, mild Rolo/Plaxum, mild blood play, mild hunk/pidge, oh and Alibaba and Kougyoku deal with some Regency-era racism here, oh and Rei/Nagisa from Free!, oh and there will be another OC who's just an asshat, so does Lance but he won't admit it, some breath play, struggles with fertility, well more like a Regency era AU at this point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-01 22:25:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12714048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphiday/pseuds/Raphiday
Summary: Post-Sense and Sensibility AU, Lance and Colonel Takashi “Shiro” Shirogane are the happily married talk of the town, especially since the former Alforchild's tailoring business is taking off far more quickly than anyone anticipated.  However, Shiro's nights are still plagued more often than not by terrible memories of his time at war, and Shiro fears they make Lance’s nights worse too.  Lance and Shiro therefore come up with an extraordinarily unconventional solution to the problem that lies at the root of Shiro's nightmares, one that requires complete trust between them, would cause the utmost scandal were it to be found out by high society, and somehow brings Lance and Shiro even closer to each other than ever.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my Shance Big Bang story! I am so grateful for my artist Washipuppy for being utterly wonderful and a great help in making sure this story saw the light of day. Her works are in later chapters, though, so keep an eye out for them!
> 
> This first chapter is set in Christmas of 1819 (which I was happy to find was a Saturday), nearing the end of the Regency Era.

It was a rare night of relative calm in Altea Park, despite the thrumming of Christmas in the air; the sun had long set over the trees that grew there, a light, barely-there shower of snow had begun to fall, and Keith and Allura Kogane were in the midst of concluding a refreshingly intimate dinner party. 

The servants had just removed the main course from the table (a tempting and demolished roast beef) and were preparing to set out desserts, consisting of a traditional Christmas pudding, gingerbread that was quickly scooped up by Slav (though Lance would insist forever that Sven placed the gingerbread right in front of Slav), a beautifully made Blanc-mange, which Shiro, Coran and Allura took some of, and baked apples, which Lance and Keith eagerly dove into upon the first set of them being placed on the table. 

“Save some for us, you know!” Coran said. He then swatted both Keith and Lance’s hands away in order to stop them from getting thirds before everyone else got a single baked apple. 

“I don’t know why Matt dislikes this, I absolutely adore it,” Allura said, eating her bowl of Blanc-mange. She then proceeded to take a large scoop of the white gelatinous treat and swallow it whole. 

“Well, familiarity does tend to bring contempt on the gastronomic level,” Shiro said, taking much smaller bites of his own dessert but enjoying it, and the flush that would occasionally color Lance’s face with a pleasant blush, just as much, “And Thace has insisted on it for Matt with a regularity that would disturb even you.”

“I don’t think that possible,” Allura said, taking another bite right afterward and moaning into her spoon.

“I rather insisted on the dish being made,” Keith whispered to Lance, his eyes love-soaked when looking upon Allura, “She always looks so happy when she eats it.”

Lance grinned in Keith’s direction and said, looking to fluster the man a little, “It’d have absolutely nothing to do with the pleasured noises Allura makes when eating Blanc-mange, nothing at all–”

“We were having a bonding moment, Lance!” Keith said, his face bright red. Whether it was because Lance had sullied an otherwise pure bonding moment with innuendo or because Lance had hit the target straight on the bullseye with his words Keith would never say. He did, however, reply in kind, “You’re no better when you hear Shiro enjoying his dessert.”

“And I’m proud of that.”

“Dinner has been absolutely marvelous tonight, who must I compliment for its creation?” Slav said, tipping a near-empty cup of wine in Shiro’s direction.

“That would be our chef Sven, who fathered this spectacular dinner,” Allura replied, finishing her plate of Blanc-mange and reaching for another portion of it.

“Thank you, my lady,” Sven said, a cheerful grin on his face as he placed a second loaf of gingerbread once again exclusively within Slav’s reach.  “May my wife and I join the festivities?”

Allura’s face brightened, quite frankly at prospect of another woman at the table but also at the prospect of her and Keith’s favorite servants dining with them.  She made her pleasure at Sven’s request known and stated, “Of course, Sven, you and Romelle are always welcome to the dining table.”  The palpable sigh of relief on Coran’s part prompted Allura, Lance and Keith to raise an eyebrow.

“For a second I feared I’d have to reprimand Sven for being too much of a flirt, or worse, Slav,” Coran muttered under his breath, and Lance patted Coran’s back empathically, “And at the dining room table at that, Slav knows I’m not much for making my issues with his behavior known in public–”

“Altea Park is your home every bit as much as Leonidus, Coran,” Keith said with no lack of affection in his voice.

“And it’ll be home to the scurrying of little feet in a few years, I suppose?” Slav asked.

Nobody at the table quite expected the downcast look on Keith and Allura’s faces at Slav’s question.  Keith’s fists clenched from under the table, and Allura looked about ready to burst into tears.  Allura took a deep breath and readied her words, and Lance and Shiro looked concernedly at the Koganes.  Lance looked ready to fly to his sister’s side to comfort her, and Shiro sat equally ready to stay Keith’s fists, even though they were to land on Slav’s face otherwise.  Coran looked torn as to what to do; should he defend the love of his life, or should he comfort his daughter and son-in-law in all but blood?  Slav simply looked confused as to how a single question could have caused all this hurt.

It still did, however, and Slav planned to apologize, saying, “It appears as though I’ve said something wrong.”

Keith got up from his seat and spat, “Yes you did, you oblivious–”

“Keith, calm down,” Allura said, placing a gentle yet firm hand on Keith’s own.  “I will not have a fight ruin our Christmas night.  It’s not like Slav meant any harm by his words, and he may very well be right–”

“But what if he’s not?”

_ Oh _ , Lance thought.   _ It’s about that again. _  Lance sighed sadly at the table.  He had known from Allura’s letters that she and Keith had tried to conceive a child for a while, and as month after month passed without a child in Allura’s womb, her heart fluttered just a little more into despair, Keith’s heart fluttered a bit more toward anger (which made Lance want to punch Keith in the face), and Alforchild Banking could only serve as a surrogate child for so long. 

Just as the tension in the room couldn’t get any higher, Sven and Romelle came to the table in the best clothes they could find, and Sven pulled a chair out for Romelle and kissed her on the cheek.  With their arrival, it immediately dissipated, and Lance hoped to God that Romelle and Sven wouldn’t reveal the news of their coming child to the table, not today.

A comforting hand began to trace at his thigh, and Lance sighed into Shiro’s touch.  Shiro whispered into his ear, “Everything is going to be all right, Lance.” 

“I sure hope so,” Lance whispered back, “Though if Keith snaps at Allura again, I won’t be able to stop my fists from making my displeasure with his actions known.”

“I think there’s a bit more to Keith’s actions than we realize. Don’t think him a devil just yet,” Shiro murmured, and he could almost feel Lance roll his eyes.  When Lance wouldn’t budge, Shiro added, pointedly rubbing at Lance’s thigh, “Perhaps we should dwell on more pleasant thoughts than this tonight.”

Lance seemed to understand exactly what Shiro was implying, for he leaned more closely and whispered, “Do you want to go outside and explore the gardens and the impending snow for a while, spend some time together just the two of us?”

Shiro smirked and replied, “I’d want nothing more in the world, Lance, but we are guests at a dinner party, and that would be rude.”

“Slav and Coran, and now Sven and Romelle, are keeping Keith and Allura busy, I’m sure we won't get caught,” Lance said, pulling Shiro away from the table.  Much to Lance’s smug delight, nobody had noticed them spirit themselves away from the dining room and outside the house. 

The first dark corner they found, Shiro pinned Lance against the wall and kissed him, whispering into his neck, “I’ve been waiting to do this all night.”

“Well you’ll have to wait a little longer, Shiro. Trust me, though, it’ll be worth it,” Lance said, gently pushing Shiro off of him and holding his hand. He then dragged Shiro to the barely-running water fountain in the back garden, yanked off his shoes and socks, threw off his tailcoat and waistcoat, and said, “This is where I’ve wanted to be all night.”

“It’s a water fountain,” Shiro said blankly, picking up Lance’s tailcoat; confused as why Lance would choose this place of all things as the one he wanted to be, he asked, “Wouldn’t you catch a chill in the water, if it hasn’t frozen yet? It’s begun to snow already–”

“This is pretty much my last opportunity to do this before winter really hits and freezes everything over, and I’ve dreamed of being taken, or taking someone, here in this fountain since I could dream about such things,” Lance whispered, clinging breathlessly to him and batting his eyes. Lance then slipped his hands underneath Shiro’s shirt and bared his neck to him. 

“Well, that certainly changes things,” Shiro said, resuming his mission to pepper kisses all the way down the expanse of Lance’s exposed neck, “Far be it from me to prevent your dreams from coming true, especially on Christmas night.”

“I love you so much, Shiro,” Lance said, removing his pants, climbing into the fountain, whooping for joy that the water hadn’t quite frozen over yet, and pulling Shiro down on top of him.

Shiro shrugged off his own tailcoat and waistcoat while still holding Lance’s, and he placed both his and Lance’s tailcoats and waistcoats on the fountain's edge.   _ Dreams can come true, _ Shiro thought, looking at the pile of clothes and his own rapidly soaking pants,  _ but perhaps a more sensible way to fulfill this fantasy of Lance’s can be found. _

“Keep the shirt on, Lance,” Shiro said, noticing Lance begin to take it off.

“Huh?”

“It’s freezing, I don’t want you to die of hypothermia and you look gorgeous when your shirt’s wet.  Especially that one.”

Lance raised an eyebrow and asked, “But wouldn’t that–”

“We don’t have much time, and I need to be in you a minute ago.”

“You really don’t mess around, do you Shiro?”

“Never when it comes to you,” Shiro said, placing two oil-soaked fingers inside of Lance and pumping vigorously. 

“You have no idea how many times I’ve touched myself to the thought of doing this,” Lance gasped, thrusting back against Shiro’s fingers, pulling Shiro closer and making him note Lance’s excitement in a rather more pointed manner. 

“So, so beautiful and all mine,” Shiro whispered into Lance’s ear as he slipped his pants down to his knees and began to furiously stroke his own cock to hardness, “How did you manage to get hard in this weather, Lance? It’s freezing out here and fuck, I need to be in you now.”

“Well you have been teasing me all night with that Blanc-mange in your mouth,” Lance said in his own playful manner, “And fuck yes, go for it–Shiro!”

“You feel so good and warm for me Lance,” Shiro said, murmuring into Lance's neck and burying himself inside of him. He kissed Lance’s lips fiercely after that, letting his left hand trail everywhere on Lance’s body he could and his prosthetic arm keeping him steady over him. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Lance praised after each thrust, his own hands wrestling through Shiro’s hair and scratching his back. 

After a few minutes, the chill of the winter night began to set in, and the water began to freeze around them. Though the sight of Lance looking like some ravished ice fairy in the water tempted him, death from the cold proved a far less appealing prospect for Shiro. He then stood up and began to carry Lance out of the water, growling into his ear, “Oh Lance, you’ve made a beast of me, an adoring beast that cannot help but worship at your feet.”

Lance could feel Shiro picking him up and out of the water, and he whined a bit at the premature conclusion of their lovemaking. “You know I’m weak for your fantastically dirty mouth, why are we stopping before either of us have co–”

“Who says we’re stopping?” Shiro asked, finally entering Lance again, prompting the most gorgeously obscene gasp, and at last maneuvering him onto the waiting tailcoats and himself out of the fountain entirely. “Do you want to know a secret?”

“Ahhhhhhhhh–Always.” Lance leaned his head back into the fountain and sighed in bliss. 

Shiro began to thrust more quickly into him as he said, reveling in Lance’s zealous and delighted moans, “Sometimes I think about taking you and just letting you moan as loudly as you please, taking you without regard to anyone else in the world but you and me, only thinking about how fucking  _ perfect _ you feel around my cock–”

“Get out of our fountain, Lance, you’re ruining Christmas!” an all-too-familiar voice cried out; there, glowering at the couple from five feet away, was Keith, an exasperated look on his face. 

Lance sat up from underneath Shiro and yelled, “Keith, damn it, Shiro was just letting his mouth free to say the filthiest things and you stopped him–”

“In what world do you think I’d take any of that into consideration?” Keith deadpanned. 

Lance sat up more vigorously and began to loudly argue with both his mouth and flailing arms, “You know what Keith, just because you didn't think of it first doesn't mean you get to ruin my Christmas and my attempt to have a good time with my husband–”

“Lance!” Shiro’s face was bright red, both for the obvious reason and a reason he’d have to admit to Lance later. 

“He interrupted us!”

Another pair of feet trudged through the first snow, and a feminine voice rang out, “So you two obviously didn't go home.”

Lance pouted more intensely than ever and said, “Keith is the worst, why did you marry him Allura?!”

Allura just smiled as benevolently as a sister who caught her younger brother canoodling with his husband could and deadpanned, “Because he keeps my fountains clean.”

“Keith has been a terrible influence on you, and you know what, I think we’ll just continue from where we left off–”

“I don’t think I can do that,” Shiro murmured embarrassedly into his shoulder.

“Shiro?”

Shiro’s face turned as red as the tailcoat Keith was wearing as he stammered, “I… well, I….”

“Oh.” Lance could tell what happened, and he pouted the entire way back into the house. 

“You two will be staying here until morning, of course,” Allura said, helping Romelle draw a fire in the room Lance and Shiro were staying in and draping a blanket over a still-sopping-wet Lance, “I’d have a conniption if I found out we had sent you and Shiro home in this state and either one of you had caught a chill from it. And seriously, Lance, it’s snowing outside, you could have died from the chill you might have gotten from this.”

Two cups of wassail were brought to Shiro and Lance, and a bright voice said, “Might I suggest trying that in the warmer months instead? Romelle and I have done so, much to our delight!”

“Sven!”

The next hour was spent with the other guests and servants frantically ensuring that Shiro and Lance remained warm enough by the fireplace. Even Keith had brought Lance an extra blanket, an apologetic look on his face.

“In retrospect,” Lance said, shivering by the fire once everyone but Shiro and himself left the room, “This might not have been my best idea.  I’m sorry I ruined Christmas.”

“You did no such thing,” Shiro said, placing a gentle kiss to Lance’s hair.

Lance’s face turned bright red as he adjusted his pants and Shiro, with no small amount of guilty realization, came to the conclusion that Keith’s interruption of their activities ensured that while Shiro had found release, Lance had not. 

“Shhhh, darling, I’ll take care of you,” Shiro whispered, laying Lance down on the bed and sticking his left hand between Lance’s legs. Considering what had happened previously, it took Lance a little over a minute to find his release in Shiro’s hand.

Lance placed his hand tenderly on Shiro’s face and whispered, “What did I do to deserve you?”

Shiro grinned and replied, “You don’t think I share the thought?” A few minutes of tender kisses and wandering hands later, Lance and Shiro fell asleep in each other’s arms. 

_ Smoke filled the air, and the clashing of swords and firing of guns and cannons filled Shiro’s ears; it always sounded worse when the weapons hit their mark. Shiro would argue to the end of his days that few things sounded worse than that of a sword or bayonet piercing through skin, the bullets and cannons making a terrible combination of explosion and human bodies, or the splatters of blood that followed. _

_ One of those few things, of course, was the sound of agonized screams that always, always followed.  _

_ Shiro stumbled through his current battlefield, his boots covered with more blood by the second, and he screamed out names of fellow soldiers he feared doomed. He tripped on the corpse of one of his subordinates, and he could not help but be frozen by his dead gaze as he fell. Bombshells exploded right by them, but nothing proved louder than his dead subordinate’s voice bellowing that Shiro had failed him, had failed them all– _

“Shiro, Shiro wake up!”

“I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry!” he rasped, jolting from sleep and clinging onto Lance for dear life.

“I’m here, Shiro, you’re safe with me,” Lance crooned. He stroked Shiro’s head and hummed an old lullaby his mother had once sang to him. Once Shiro had finally calmed down, Lance asked, “Shiro, what’s bothering you?”

Shiro pulled Lance closer, sighed into his shoulder and said, “You probably haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in over a month.”

Lance snuggled into Shiro’s chest and said, “Well, my tailoring business is taking off much more quickly than I anticipated, so that means late nights in the study designing new outfits and hemming old pants, and you’ve certainly spoiled me quite  _ deliciously _ during my tougher evenings lately, so–”

Shiro sat up and said, noting Lance’s head slipping from his chest to his lap, “You and I both know what I’m actually talking about, Lance.  My nightmares have been keeping you up.”

Lance sat up as well, and with a disgruntled look on his face, he replied, “And I’m telling you that it’s not your fault I’ve been restless lately.”

“You fell asleep in your tailor’s chair an hour before we were due to visit Allura and Keith, darling.”

“You know you can talk to me about your nightmares, right?” Lance said, rubbing the skin closest to the connection between man and metal.

After a silent battle of wills that lasted but a few minutes, Shiro conceded defeat and said, “I don’t know why nightmares about this have only come recently, but you know full well that soon before I met you, and after I earned my rank in earlier battles with Napoleon’s forces, I was sent to America to fight what was supposed to be a smaller battle.  That’s where I lost most of my right arm, and I–”

“If I recall correctly, you were a hero there too, Shiro.”

“I don’t quite see what I did in America as particularly heroic. After I lost my arm and got refitted for a metal one, not this one, thank God, I did a lot of terrible things to survive, killed a lot of people that probably didn’t deserve the way they died.”

“Things the newspapers wouldn’t print?” Lance asked.

Now completely awake, Shiro said, “Precisely. The higher officials didn’t care much for the battles in America anyway with Napoleon’s shadow hanging over them. The war with the Napoleonic empire, and this small theater of a war within it, turned men into beasts when it wasn’t killing them, and well, I’m alive.”

“This is making me wonder if I should believe everything I read from the local newspaper anymore,” Lance said, “But back to you. So you’re scared that the war put a monster in you, one that’ll eat you alive, or worse, hurt the people you’re trying to protect, if you don’t let it out every now and then?”

“Well, yes,” Shiro said, shocked to hear his worries summarized so succinctly. “This isn’t your problem though, Lance-”

“Like you said before, it affects my sleep. And I can’t sleep very well anyway knowing my husband’s having nightmares he needs comfort for, which means that it’s in both our best interest to find a way to safely let the monster out,” Lance said; oddly enough, his demeanor became suddenly shy as he said, “And I think I know just the way to do it too.”

“Are you thinking of taking our dogs out hunting more?”

After a laugh and fond murmur of “You’re so cute,” Lance said, twiddling his thumbs and rocking back and forth, “Well, I was thinking of something a bit more… intimate. Maybe that beast you fear resides in you can ravage me for a while, and we can confine him to our marriage bed.”

Shiro froze, for he had never felt more split in two than in the moments following Lance’s suggestion; Shiro had never, never wanted Lance to even meet the monster he hid, let alone engage with it, and in such intimate terms at that, but the beast in him? Oh it roared its approval at the thought of Lance under him, begging for the mercy only bliss could provide and completely _his_. And oddest of all, there was a voice outside the beast that thought it quite the excellent idea… so Shiro proceeded to at least try to shut all his conflicting thoughts down and blurted out, “Lance, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s no problem if I’m quite literally asking you to do it,” Lance said; upon seeing Shiro’s skeptical face, he added, “And of course we’d set our boundaries, never to be violated, before we did anything of the sort.”

“But what exactly would we be doing anyway?”

Lance’s face proceeded to turn bright red. He said, trying to hide the enthusiasm in his voice and his mind reeling with fantasies of Shiro doing so, so much with him, “Well, outside our own fantastic roleplay with me as the prince of the water fairies, I know I have some experience with having my breath stolen away, being tied up, and once I even found myself enjoying being cut to the point of blood but what about you? What exactly would the beast in  _ you _ want to do in bed?”

“I don’t know the answer to that question yet,” Shiro said, images of Lance tied up and presented to him making the beast purr, but what would happen should Shiro let him out?

The pause after Shiro’s statement must have been too long for Lance, for he said to break it, “If you really don’t want to do this, let’s pretend I never said anything.”

“Give me a couple weeks to think on it, I’m not saying no. Just give me time to really figure out what we could do with this,” Shiro said after a shorter silence than before, slipping underneath the covers and added blankets to go to sleep. 

“I can do that.” Lance then smiled, kissed Shiro’s cheek and laid his head on Shiro’s chest, where it remained until morning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the new year begins and Lance's tailoring business begins to take off, Shiro considers and doesn't consider at once. Additionally, new visitors at Keatonshire Abbey shake up the household, and entirely by accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took so long to post Chapter 2, editing was surprisingly difficult with this one. Also, meet Alibaba and Kougyoku Saluja... I mean Ali Baba and Hóngyù Saluja. Yes, they are definitely based off Alibaba and Kougyoku from Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, and I love them. I also love Rei (the one from Free!), Lance and Shiro's servant/apprentice, and he makes his first appearance here as well.
> 
> This happens every time I write a larger story like this: it eventually becomes a low-key crossover LOL.

Neither Lance nor Shiro mentioned the previous night’s conversation in the morning. The snow, along with a very insistent Allura and Keith Kogane, persuaded them both to stay at Altea Park until the end of the year, and they managed to distract the Shiroganes so thoroughly that nearly all thoughts of that fateful Christmas night conversation could easily be shoved to the back of their minds. Much to Allura’s shock, however, after church ended on January 2nd, Lance insisted on leaving with Shiro back to Keatonshire Abbey. 

She made her feelings about the situation known, of course. “I would have thought you and Shiro would be staying until the end of the holiday.”

“With everything turning toward industry these days, the start of the new year  _ is _ the end of the holiday, and my tailoring company can’t run itself, you know!” Lance said. He then dragged his luggage to the carriage, no matter how much Sven and Romelle insisted on helping him. Oddly enough, Lance was perfectly fine with them carrying Shiro’s luggage, something he knew would get a scolding eyebrow from Shiro. Now if Shiro could perhaps scold him in a far more delightful manner, bring out that beast in him–Lance then scolded himself for the thought.  _ Now is  _ really _ not the time for such thoughts, you’re saying farewell to your sister and her husband, for goodness sake _ , he told himself. 

“You’re really going to see this through, aren’t you?” Allura said, her voice filled with unexpected pride. 

“Yes I am, Allura,” Lance said, placing his luggage into the carriage, “I mean, I can’t live off my fancy bank owner sister's yearly allowance to me all my life!”

Lance watched Shiro enter the carriage after giving Keith a hug, and he stepped into Allura’s embrace for a hug of his own. “We will see each other again soon, Allura.”

Allura grinned and said, her voice full of mischief, “Sooner than you think, actually–”

“Huh?”  _ What is Allura up to? _ Lance thought as he left her embrace and entered the carriage. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Allura said, waving them off as the carriage left, “I know the carriage ride is going to be treacherous with this weather, so please, for the love of God, write me a letter tomorrow indicating that you’re safe.”

* * *

“Guess who got another paying client today?” Lance said in the store a day after they had returned home, an enormous grin on his face.

“Who’s the lucky customer?” Shiro asked, sitting on the chair with his prosthetic arm draped with threads and the occasional ribbon. Lance had the endearing tendency to use the indefatigability of Shiro’s metal arm to hold the evidence of his works in progress. If that meant Shiro could sit with Lance for a while, then so be it. So far Lance had begun the stitching on four different projects, as noted by the four differing colors of thread. 

“It’s Coran!  Apparently he wants to look particularly dapper for Slav’s reopening of the library coming up, coincidentally on your birthday, darling, and he’s entrusted me with the design and creation of his outfit.” Lance then draped four yards of a light periwinkle fabric onto Shiro’s arm and gasped as Shiro pulled him into a kiss. 

As Shiro deepened the kiss and Lance fell into his lap, a stray thought ran through his mind.  _ There’s a gorgeous green ribbon right there on your arm. Tie Lance’s hands together with it and keep him on your lap for a while. I know you understand what I mean.  _

_ Not here _ , Shiro scolded,  _ not in Lance’s store he needs to work. _

The stray voice came back… was it his beast? and replied,  _ I noticed you didn’t say not at all. And Lance would say full well that it’s your store too so– _

Shiro coughed into Lance’s shoulder, and Lance got up from his lap and asked, “I know it’s a bit chilly in here, are you feeling unwell? I could get Rei to go back to Keatonshire Abbey with you and make you some soup.”

“I must still be weary from traveling yesterday,” Shiro said. He got up from the chair and added, gently removing the threads from his arm in the process, “And it is very cold. I think even this arm of mine can feel that.”

“You must be freezing, then,” Lance said. He then removed the ribbon from Shiro’s arm, kissed Shiro’s cheek, and purred, placing Shiro’s jacket on him, “You know, I could close the shop early and come with you to warm you up.”

_ Let him _ , the beast agreed, and the image of Lance tied up with the ribbons from the shop and sighing blissfully into the strain once again set Shiro’s face and body aflame. And with Lance draped behind him, Shiro felt almost tempted to turn around, take Lance into his arms and carry him to the ribbons he’d be tied up with and this runaway fantasy of his was getting more plausible by the second and he needed to get out and  _ now _ .

“I’ll be fine, Lance. You have an apprentice to teach in Rei. I can get home safely on my own, and perhaps a day of rest will serve me well after all.” Shiro then walked out of the shop, resolutely going forward as to not see the disappointment that would inevitably paint Lance’s face, for he hated that sight more than almost anything in the world. Shiro had not walked ten paces before he heard that intimately familiar voice.

“Shiro!”

He turned around and said, “Yes?”

Lance had the look of a man with a thousand questions ready to flee his lips, but only one made a successful escape. He said, hesitation Shiro hated hearing in his voice, “I forgot to write Allura a letter telling her we got home safely! Could you please do that for me when you get home?”

“Of course.”

* * *

“The signs are in today!” Lance said giddily two days later, opening the package at the front of the store. As he took a good look at each of them and sighed happily at how well each sign turned out, Lance figured that luck must be on his side. He would admit, though, that the sign for Blue Lioness Tailoring, with its gorgeously carved lioness and wonderful utilization of blue paint, proved to be his favorite.

And even better, Shiro had arrived at the shop, bringing his presence and a midday snack with him. 

“Shiro, what should I name the business?” Lance said, presenting him with three signs: one said Threading the Needle, one said Alforchild-Shirogane Seamsters, and the last said Blue Lioness Tailoring.

Shiro took out the snacks, a loaf of Rei’s homemade bread to be split between the three of them, Shiro, Lance and Rei being the three, with butter and jam, and said, giving Lance a slice slathered with butter, just how he liked it, “The last one suits you best.”

“But the second one involves both of us,” Lance said with his mouth full, “And the other tailoring companies on Bond Street are named similarly.”

“The second one spells ass, Lance,” Shiro said, slathering his own slice up half with butter and half with jam, “And I don’t particularly see my contribution to the business anyway.”

“Hush, hush, darling,” Lance said with no small amount of affection, placing a butter-covered kiss to his cheek. “You contribute more than you know.”  _ Including preventing my store from becoming the butt of far too many jokes. _

Lance had noticed that despite the affection still obviously there, Shiro had become tenser lately; he at first suspected it to be due to the cold of the winter, which proved more biting this year than even other recent winters had been. Yet even in the night, pressed against Lance and buried under blankets, Shiro still felt an entirely different sort of cold. 

The nightmares had returned at an alarming rate, and Shiro had accepted his comfort for them less and less. Perhaps an anniversary of a particular battle was approaching, perhaps Shiro simply got moody in the winter, or perhaps, Lance thought with no small amount of shame, he never should have made that offer after all. There was so much that Lance wanted to say, yet they ate, side by side, in still affectionate silence. 

* * *

Two days after Epiphany, Shiro saw Lance scurrying about the house, his face red and his hair smelling like ash from frantically cleaning the fireplace and instructing Rei to begin making some white soup and bread pudding.  

“I cannot believe I forgot about this,” Lance said, suddenly more flustered than Shiro had ever seen him. “Ali Baba and Hóngyù Saluja are visiting us for a while, it’s mostly business matters with regards to fabric prices but I really should have had the place cleaned for them!”

“And who might they be?”

Lance promptly blushed even redder than before, and Shiro could not help the churning of his gut at the thought of it.

“They’re very good friends of mine,” Lance answered, and Shiro found himself perturbed by it. 

As he and Lance made preparations for their guests, Shiro could hear Lance repeatedly try to make conversation with him, only to find a brick wall. Eventually Lance transferred his attempts at banter to a much more receptive Rei, who prattled on about Blue Lioness Tailoring and a certain newspaper delivery man Rei found himself getting fond of. 

Shiro knew he was being overly quiet but what else could he do? He couldn’t quite tell the monster within him to shut up out loud. 

Speaking of the annoying beast, he kept rambling on about how Shiro really should just grab Lance and, if he didn’t want to utterly ravish Lance before their guests were due to arrive, at least place a nice mark on his neck, bright and deep, to show the new guests exactly who Lance actually belonged to. And maybe pleasure Lance with his hand as thanks, Shiro had been far too cold and distant lately. 

Shiro’s face turned bright red, and he growled out his frustration while attempting to chop up an obnoxious amount of onions. The knife was taken from his hands seconds later, and he turned around to face a concerned Rei Ryugazaki. 

“Something has been frustrating you lately, Colonel,” Rei said, finishing off the chopping of the onions, “And Lance, I mean Mr. Alforchild-Shirogane, I don’t mean to overstep, but he’s suffered from quite the melancholy lately. And I wonder if the two are connected.”

"I've been getting nightmares more often than Lance can help me with lately, and it has put some strain on the both of us," Shiro confessed.

As Rei put the chopped onions in the pot, he wondered aloud, "Perhaps you've been having nightmares more often lately than you're willing to let Lance help you with?  Or perhaps their nature is what bothers you about them?  Are you afraid of hurting your husband, Colonel?"

_Why did Lance hire a servant as frustratingly perceptive as Slav again?_ Shiro thought as he determined how to answer him.

Red continued, "Your husband loves you, and your distance is hurting him more than any revelation in these nightmares will.  Close that distance, and soon."  

Before he could give Rei a decent answer, however, they both heard a knocking at the door.

“They can’t be here already!” Lance ran panickedly to the door and almost sighed in relief when he saw his actual guests, “Keith, Allura, what are you doing here?!”

Allura pulled her brother into a hug and said, “I must admit to some curiosity. I haven’t seen Hóngyù in years, not since you managed to get her and Ali Baba married.”

Keith asked, “Wait, his name’s actually Ali Baba?”

_ Speak of the devil and he appears _ , Shiro thought, for immediately afterward, a bright pair of lovers stood at the door. 

Shiro supposed that he had been around his beloved Lance just long enough to begin to note things he wouldn’t have before. The oddly handsome man was nearly as tan-skinned as Lance, with golden brown eyes and bright blond hair with a point of it sticking out, and he wore a bright orange and red-embroidered tailcoat along with the usual fare. The woman beside him was quite the sight to behold, with dark magenta hair put up in a style reminiscent of a rabbit, impeccably applied make-up, almost distressingly white skin, and, oddest of all, pink eyes. Her aqua traveling gown suited her quite well.

“Lance, it’s wonderful to see you again!” the man said, a cheeky grin on his face that reminded Shiro of Lance’s own at its brightest. 

“Hóngyù, Ali Baba, it’s been forever!” Lance said, running up to the couple at the door and giving them a long, zealous hug. 

“It really has been far too long since we’ve last seen your face,” Hóngyù said, placing Lance’s face in her hands, “We really have so much to talk about, and I heard you got married without us! We really must meet this spouse of yours and see exactly what sort of person got you, the great coxcomb Lance Alforchild, to settle down.”

And with that Shiro determined that a claiming on his part would not just be reasonable, it was  _ necessary _ . 

Ali Baba and Hóngyù Saluja, upon entering Keatonshire Abbey and profusely apologizing for the many bags they had brought, proved to be quite the delightful guests, actually, when not viewed with the eyes of a slightly jealous husband. 

Keith immediately began asking Ali Baba many questions, including, “Your name’s actually Ali Baba, right?  It’s not some pseudonym you’ve conjured up in order to justify hiking the prices of your products?”

Ali Baba looked as though he didn’t know whether to recoil in offense or laugh his face off, but he answered cordially, “Ali Baba is my real name, Mr. Kogane.  Is that a problem?”

And with that, Keith asked yet another question. “Why are you blond, then?”

Lance looked terribly offended as he ran to Keith and Ali Baba and said, “Keith, you cannot just ask a man why he’s blond!  I am so sorry, Ali Baba, I really should have told you about my brother in law, he’s a bit dense on the social front–”

Ali Baba outright laughed afterward, saying, “You really don’t need to apologize!  My darling Hóngyù loves changing the color of her hair, as you can see her hair’s this delightful shade of dark magenta right now, last year she had somehow managed to dye it a light teal and it contrasted marvelously with the color of her eyes and wow she’s absolutely lovely in this light….”

Keith’s eyes lit up with recognition, and he added, “And there’s probably something to make your hair blond which you’ve been using, right?”

Ali Baba grinned, clapped a hand on Keith’s shoulder and yelled, “Precisely!  I figured that having lighter hair would make the more… the more–”

Lance sighed; he placed a hand on Ali Baba’s shoulder and said, “The more racist merchants, Ali Baba. You’re in actually civilized company, it’s all right to say that here, though Keith might be the exception–”

“Lance!”

Ali Baba chuckled again and clarified, “Yes, the more backwards-thinking traders here.  I figured blond hair would make them more amenable to making deals with me.”

Allura entered the conversation with a happy “You said Hóngyù deals in hair dyes now, correct?”

“Yes she does!” Ali Baba replied, and it took him all the self-discipline in the world to not once again rave about his darling wife. 

Aluura grinned and said, “I’d very much like to talk with her, I’ve always wanted to change my hair to a nice shade of lavender….”

“I like your hair as it is, though,” Keith said, promptly burying his head into Allura’s thick ebony waves.

Hóngyù shyly approached the group and said to Allura, a small blush on her face, “You’re far prettier than I remembered you being.”

“It’s been too long since we last saw each other, then,” Allura said, pulling a now-flustered Hóngyù into a hug. "And you really must tell me how you styled your hair so marvelously, it's utterly adorable...."

After a solid hour of conversation and another two enjoying an impromptu dinner party prepared to perfection by Rei, Keith and Allura left for Leonidus, which left the Shiroganes and the Salujas alone in Keatonshire Abbey.

“I like your brother-in-law, Lance, he’s so honest,” Ali Baba said the very moment the door closed behind Keith and Allura. 

“I’ve liked him better than I do lately,” Lance admitted; Ali Baba and Lance then huddled together in the corner of the parlor to talk for a while, which left Shiro alone with Hóngyù. They sat together in amicable silence for a few minutes and heard Lance and Ali Baba discuss Keith and Allura’s struggles to conceive a child in increasingly dramatic tones. 

“So you’re Lance’s husband, Colonel,” Hóngyù said, breaking the silence with her hands gently placed on her lap, “I’m not surprised he picked someone so handsome. I am surprised, however, that he picked someone so quiet. Perhaps he likes having someone listen to him for a while.”

“I do talk more than I have been tonight. I simply have my reasons for remaining silent.”  _ The most prominent ones being my recurring nightmares and the beast in my head I’m trying to silence demanding that I grab my husband and claim him right in front of you two _ , Shiro added to himself.

Hóngyù asked, half-listening to Ali Baba and Lance’s conversation, half engrossed in her own, “Do you dislike us? I know Lance can be a little over-generous and this is every bit as much your house as his and you obviously didn’t know who we were until tonight and–”

“I haven’t known you long enough to determine whether I dislike you or not. Be reassured that my opinion of you and your husband at the moment is pleasantly neutral,” Shiro said, placing his feeling hand on her shoulder and steadying her.

“I do hope the gift Hóngyù and I got for you and your husband brings some comfort for you. We did bring something special, after all,” Shiro and Hóngyù heard Ali Baba say. He then placed four medium-sized bottles into Lance’s hands and whispered exactly what that something special was in Lance’s ear. Much to the chagrin of Shiro’s gut, Lance’s grin grew wider by the second. 

“Ali Baba, you magnificent man! Thank you so much!” Lance then placed the bottles on the corner table, cupped Ali Baba’s face in his hands and gave him a kiss to each cheek. 

“Well, I certainly hope you and Lance enjoy our special gift,” Hóngyù said to Shiro, an oddly knowing smirk on her face. “Ali Baba and I are off to bed. Thank you for the wonderful welcome, the both of you.”

She then grabbed her husband’s hand, happily traipsed up the stairs with him in tow, and closed the guest room door. 

“What gift did Ali Baba and Hóngyù give you anyway?” Shiro said as he and Lance walked to their bedroom; the room turned silent after that, and Shiro wondered if he had perhaps snapped the question out instead of asking it.

“Oh, they gave us these oils that they swear by in the bedroom,” Lance said, almost fluttering right after saying it, and Shiro almost decided to start counting just how many times his stomach could churn in the span of a single day. 

“Oils? Wouldn’t simple olive oil suffice?”

“These oils are spiced with some aphrodisiac herbs that should make our love life even better than it is now,” Lance said, opening the bottle he had carried with him and placing its top to Shiro’s nose, “Smell it!”

“Do I smell ginseng?” Shiro asked. He would not admit that his cheeks had turned slightly redder than before, and the beast itched within him more than ever, perhaps had been itching for two weeks straight–

“Yes, you do,” Lance said, “Hóngyù comes from a long line of royalty, so she has access to practically everything she could ask for on certain fronts. There’s one that’s infused with saffron that Hóngyù has been raving about, but I was more interested in this oil tonight–”

Shiro at last blurted out, “I think it’s time we address the elephant in the room, Lance. About the discussion we had Christmas night and the offer you made me.”

Lance froze; he then said, his voice distressingly neutral despite its wavering, “So you didn’t forget, then.”

An uncomfortable pause later, Shiro answered, “No, I didn’t–”

Lance looked on the brink of tears as he stammered, “Shiro, I am so sorry, it was a terrible offer I made, I should have realized that your nightmares from the war couldn’t just be comforted away by my–”

Shiro placed his hands on Lance’s shoulders in an attempt to calm him and said, “Lance. You suggested it as an idea, not as the only one.”

Lance looked up at him with tear-filled eyes and said, “Well, I… I thought that….”

At that moment, Shiro realized that his distance the past two weeks had hurt Lance more than he could have ever anticipated. He hugged Lance more tightly and said, stroking his hair, “I’ve acted shamefully toward you lately precisely because I’ve been considering it, because I’ve wanted to accept your offer more than I wished to admit, and because I said nothing to you about it, you must have thought me disgusted.”

Lance pulled slightly back and said, “Well, yes, which is why I’m telling you that you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to–”

“I know that, Lance, and I’ve made my decision, darling,” Shiro said, and in retrospect he would not be able to remember a moment in which Lance was quieter and more pointedly poised than this one, the moment before he said, “My answer is yes.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Shiro make arrangements, Shiro names his beast and lets it out, and wow do they love it. This chapter is basically smut and everything leading up to it. Oh, and as a side note, Coran gave Lance and Shiro Ebony and Azula as wedding gifts.

Though Lance tried to hide his reaction to Shiro’s answer, Lance’s eyes could not have sparkled more obviously with joy; his sweet attempt at a neutral face easily gave way to a grin, his body relaxed, and he blurted out, “I need to go downstairs, then! I have something for you!”

_ That was certainly an odd reaction _ , Shiro thought as he sat on the edge of their bed, heard Lance loudly stumble down the stairs, and began to coax the beast to come out. Lance could not have been more blatantly excited as he climbed back up the stairs, holding a large black swath of fabric in his arms. 

“What are you holding?”

Lance began to straighten the black fabric out and did Shiro detect fur? as he said, “Well, I made this for you on the off chance that you’d say yes to this, and I know it’s a little odd to be receiving a cloak, especially since you still have that wonderful black and silver embroidered coat I made you last year, but–”

“Did you honestly make me a cloak?”

“–and I feared for the longest time that I was simply an incorrigible bastard, taking advantage of his husband’s trauma to get what he wants but to know you want this too–”

“Lance, you’re rambling. What’s in your arms?”

“Something I hope will get you into the spirit of our new bedroom experiment,” Lance said proudly. He then stood up, grinned, and presented Shiro with nothing less than a black velvet, silver-embroidered, fur-lined cloak. 

In the moments following the revelation of the cloak, their bedroom settled into the most awkward silence that had ever descended upon it. Shiro’s head ran wild with thoughts akin to  _ When did he have the time to do this? _ and  _ Is Lance really that willing to see that side of me? Does he even know what he’s asking for?! _

And yet there was another part of him that  _ purred _ at the thought of it, that reveled in the fantasy playing in his head of Lance happily and  _ knowingly _ giving himself even to Shiro’s demons, and Shiro did not know whether to immediately shoot the idea down, to refuse his darker side any chance to betray the best man in his life, or to pull him close, take the gift Lance was giving him, and kiss him to within inches of his life. 

It was only when Lance’s grin began to falter and he began to shrink into himself, still holding the cloak, that Shiro walked up to him, began to trace the black velvet and fur-lined cloak lovingly in his hands, and asked, “You made this for me?”

“I figured wearing something you’re not used to would make it easier to tap into that monster you’ve been hiding from me,” Lance said, his voice teasing as he watched Shiro gingerly hold the cloak in his hands.

“Are you sure  _ you _ want to do this?” Shiro asked, his fingers playing with the fur lining.  His eyes filled with uncertain want as images of himself wearing the cloak were conjured in his mind, of himself embracing the beast inside him he buried after the war to protect the people he loved from it.

“Yes, Shiro.  I’ve only been surer of a few things in my life, and one of them was marrying you.”

Strange, primal joy filled Shiro to the core, and as he wondered what exactly to do with it, Lance continued, “So, what should we name your dark side? I'm thinking Kuro would be–”

“Before we get into this, Lance, and you said this when you made the suggestion, some boundaries need to be put into place,” Shiro breathlessly blurted out, placing his left hand on Lance’s shoulder, “For both our sakes.”

“That’s fair,” Lance said, still not quite believing this was happening, “What were you thinking?  Verbal or nonverbal?”

“I was hoping we’d have both, you know,” Shiro replied, face bright red with implication, “In case your mouth is otherwise occupied.”

Lance raised an eyebrow and smirked at that.  He then slipped away from Shiro’s grip and mouthed as he moved his head down Shiro’s body, “You know that can be arranged dear–”

“Lance!”

“Fine,” Lance said, plopping himself down on the bed once more, “I was thinking a good slow-down word could be Ebony–”

Shiro paused; the image of Ebony happily wagging her tail as she greeted him was far too innocent a sight for his head to conjure up in this context. He then furrowed his brow and asked, “Why would you bring our dogs into this?”

Lance apparently hadn’t heard him, for he continued, “–and my absolute safe word would be Azula.”

“Once again, darling, why are we bringing our dogs into this?” Shiro asked, this time slightly louder so Lance could hear him, “And why Azula’s name in particular?”

Lance’s grin turned outright scandalous as he replied, “Because Azula  _ always _ comes when called.”  He then turned to the door and shouted, “Azula!”

With that, a beagle with a royal blue collar came bounding into the room and promptly slipped between Shiro and Lance to rest upon Lance’s lap.  “Told you.”

“Well, that’s certainly an effective stopper to activity,” Shiro said, fondly watching Lance pet Azula.  _ Perhaps Kuro could wait an extra night to come out and play, _ Shiro thought with an affectionate sigh, the stray thread of realization that Kuro already liked his name fluttering to the back of his mind. However, he then imagined a pouting Lance wearing the cloak he had made for Shiro and nothing else out of sheer charming spite for the rest of the night and he could feel his body flush and Kuro grin.

Shiro then asked, “We can share safewords, right?”

Lance answered, giddy that the cloak had gone over so well, “I was thinking we’d do that.”

“Oh good.”

“Now as for nonverbal safeguards, I am not calling them safewords it makes no sense, I have extra fabric hanging around that I could use for that.”  Lance then left the room and quickly grabbed a pile of loose fabric, returning to Shiro and gently placing the scraps of fabric onto the bed.

Lance promptly picked a small strip of blue silk that Shiro distinctly remembered being of the same skein as the silk in Lance’s fairy prince costume, and Shiro blushed as Lance said, “This blue fabric here means ‘Keep going, I’m perfectly fine.’ I will be waving this so often you’ll get sick of seeing it, so get used to it.”

Lance then picked a strip of leftover black satin from Allura’s old mourning dress (she had cut it up after Lucius Zarkonson’s arrest as a sign that she at last had begun to make peace with her father’s death at Zarkonson’s hands) and said, “I’ll wave this around when I need you to slow down or pause whatever we’re doing. I don’t know how often I’ll need this one.”

Finally, Lance picked a strip of red-dyed cashmere fabric, and Shiro fondly remembered Lance ranting about Keith’s terrible sense of style and his even worse insistence on wearing a red cashmere waistcoat while marrying Lance’s precious older sister before slipping back into the conversation just in time to hear “And this travesty fabric is what I’ll wave when I absolutely want you to stop whatever you’re doing to me. I’ll probably never need to use this, but like you’d say, safety first.”

Shiro smiled as he handled the strips of fabric Lance had unwittingly given him, memorized their meanings, and gave them back to Lance. He then gently shooed Azula away and told her to wait by Ali Baba and Hóngyù’s door.

“There’s a large pile of fabric you can pick out for your own nonverbal safeguards.  I can wait,” Lance said, and he motioned to the still-prominent pile of scraps on the bed.

“I know you too well, darling.  You really can’t.”  Shiro then knocked the remaining strips of fabric off the bed, grabbed the cloak, draped it over his shoulders and felt Kuro grin.

“Shiro you are the worst,” Lance pouted, though he conceded in his head that Shiro was right; he really was quite looking forward to seeing Kuro.

“Who said it was Shiro talking to you?” Lance turned to Shiro, saw him wearing the cloak, and gasped into Kuro’s roving mouth.

Kuro’s hands proved far rougher than Shiro's had ever been, fiercely grabbing Lance’s shoulders and pinning him to the bed. A hand slithered through his hair and pulled his head back, and Kuro saw the sweat trickling down Lance’s neck, the vein there throbbing quickly and with need, and Kuro placed his lips there and bit. 

The gasping scream that left Lance’s lips set Kuro’s blood aflame, and before Kuro could run away with that scream and make Lance scream louder, Shiro asked, “Did I hurt you? Should we stop?”

Lance raised a single eyebrow, deadpanned, “Did I say the safeword?” and then, upon seeing Shiro shake his head, grinned and said, “Then keep going, damn it.”

Kuro’s hands proved viciously skilled at ripping up Lance’s shirt; Lance almost decided to shrug his now-torn shirt off but was stopped by a lust-mad Kuro, who said while pinning his arms to the bed,  “Keep it on. You’re an utter vision like this, sweet and ripped up and oh-so-delightfully exposed to me.”

Lance shrugged and conceded, “Fine. At least let me remove yours, though. That chest is too much of a gift from God to keep under wraps. Keep on the cloak, though. I quite like it on you.”

Kuro’s shirt, therefore, promptly came off. 

“I know where you’d look better,” a now shirtless and very flattered Kuro said, shoving Lance off the bed and onto his knees. “Now open your mouth and take in my cock like a good little pet, alright?”

“Yes, sir!” Lance answered, and he eagerly waited as Kuro unbuttoned his pants and moved them down to his knees. He could feel his own erection straining at his pants, and dear God this was a wonderful idea.

Kuro then placed the prosthetic hand at the back of Lance’s head, and Lance leaned into it, relishing the feel of the metal fingers in his hair. Kuro took very little time after that before thrusting mercilessly into Lance’s mouth. 

Now Shiro’s cock always felt good in Lance’s mouth, but knowing that Shiro was taking his role as Kuro so seriously and feeling Shiro let himself as Kuro take pleasure in Lance with outright primal abandon made Lance weak at the knees, made his pants tight enough to nearly hurt now, and God he needed some sweet relief–

And he pressed himself against Kuro’s leg and began to rut. Oh this felt so much better than he remembered it. He grabbed Kuro’s cloak and left thigh to steady himself and thrust against his leg, the sweet friction being more than enough to make him moan.

Kuro outright growled upon feeling Lance moan around his cock, and his other hand slid through Lance’s hair and pressed him closer, making Lance take the entirety of his cock in his mouth.

“Oh fuck yes, you naughty little pet, humping my leg like it was made for it and eating my cock like it’s your favorite treat,” Kuro said, and when Lance hummed his approval he added, “You look like you were made to take my cock in your pretty little mouth and moan around it, oh my pretty little pet, you love this, don’t you?”

Lance pulled away for a second, and, still humping Shiro’s leg, he rasped, “Fuck yes, sir. I’m not going to last much longer at this rate, sir, please, let me come!”

“Oh, I’m not going to last either,” Kuro said, thrusting once more into Lance’s mouth and outright fucking his face at a brutal pace. Lance’s whimpers would have sounded pained to him had Lance not been waving the blue silk cloth the entire time, and Lance’s body began to shake and spasm as he came, almost outright screaming around his cock.

Lance’s happily glazed eyes and the vibrations around his cock did Kuro in, and he found his bliss seconds afterward. He slumped forward and meant to remove his cock from Lance’s mouth only to find him swallowing his cum. And oh, Kuro found himself a good pet.

After Lance contented himself, he stood up, flopped onto the bed and rasped, “That was amazing.”

Shiro came back to himself, pulled up his pants and asked, “I didn't hurt you too badly?”

“Not too badly at all,” Lance said, rubbing the back of his head with the blue strip of fabric; “I have to say, though, I am so glad we thought up the fabrics as nonverbal signals, because I was not expecting my mouth to be fucked tonight, that's for sure.”

“I didn’t quite expect it either,” Shiro conceded, the weight of what they had done at last beginning to settle on him like the cloak he found himself still wearing. He took the cloak off, draped it on Lance’s shoulders, and found the truth spilling from his lips, “But I must admit… I loved it.”

To Shiro’s eternal surprise, Lance’s eyes lit up and his mouth lifted in a joyous smile, and he whispered while beckoning Shiro to sit, “Me too, darling. Me too.”

After a far more comfortable pause in which nothing was heard but the sound of Lance removing Shiro’s prosthetic arm and his own cum-stained pants and slipping back into bed, Lance said, “Thank you, Shiro. Thank you so much for trusting me with this, I thought I had done something terrible by asking you for–”

Shiro slipped under the covers, pulled Lance into a deep kiss, sighed at the tender press of Lance’s lips and skin against his own, and said, “Oh Lance, I should be thanking you.”

Lance himself had begun to slumber when Shiro asked, making a pathetic facsimile of an attempt to leave the bed but much preferring to remain buried underneath the multiple blankets on their bed, “What about the pile of fabric on the floor?”

Lance wrapped his arms around Shiro’s waist and snuggled into his chest, murmuring, “We can pick it up in the morning, Shiro. But for now, we need sleep.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Kuro's introduction and a surprise visit from Rolo and Polly Beauregard, jealousies hidden in both Lance and Shiro's hearts are revealed and, to their surprise, nullified. Which proves to be a good thing, considering they need to be a unified front while facing the bombshells Keith and the Salujas are about to drop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it took me so long to update this chapter! At the very last minute, the plot took an interesting lurch with one particular character and the entire story starting from this chapter was shifted to accommodate the change. Hopefully subsequent chapters will be updated much more quickly than this one was!

They got up together the following morning, having gotten their best night’s sleep in a long while. Lance nuzzled Shiro’s bare back while Shiro reached for his prosthetic arm, and Lance grabbed the harness for it and beckoned Shiro to give him the arm. After Lance put both harness and arm on, he gave Shiro a kiss on the cheek and sighed happily, saying while handing him his shirt, “Well I suppose you have to put this on if we’re to be decent for breakfast.”

Shiro then crawled toward Lance and gently pinned him back onto the bed, purring, “What if I don’t  _ want _ to be decent?”

“As much as I’d normally indulge this rare and happy impulse,” Lance said, making half-hearted attempts to get up from his prone position, “We have guests.”

Speaking of their guests, Hóngyù and Ali Baba were waiting at the top of the stairs, looking at Lance and Shiro, and then at each other, as though they had a shared secret joke they couldn’t stop thinking about. 

“I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed our gift!” Ali Baba blurted out. He then began to prattle on to Lance about possibly giving Rei a gift because it had been only a night and already Rei had been such a kind and friendly servant and Rei shouldn’t even regard Ali Baba as his superior anyway and what would Rei like….

“You enjoyed it quite loudly though,” Hóngyù continued, nodding at Shiro and adding with a playful voice, “And you certainly have quite the mouth on you. My darling Ali Baba suffers the same affliction.”

Shiro, remembering the still-unopened bottle of ginseng-infused oil and feeling his face heat up, stammered, “Actually we–”

“Thank you so much!” Lance said, a rare blush on his face as he returned to Shiro and Hóngyù’s conversation. “I think I heard Rei calling everyone down for breakfast!”

Ali Baba and Hóngyù immediately went down the stairs hand in hand, and Shiro sighed in relief once they escaped his line of vision. “I wonder how much they heard,” Shiro said, burying his face in his hands. 

Lance let out a catlike grin, leaned on Shiro’s shoulder and said, “Let’s look at this optimistically, Shiro. Ali Baba and Hóngyù certainly know you better now.” 

Shiro promptly groaned.

* * *

 

The following week proved to be filled with pleasant surprises, as Allura and Keith’s visit to their small town lasted a happy three days, and a letter from Thace and Matt Kogane to Lance and Takashi Shirogane had arrived, explicitly stating that Katherine and Henare Garrett would be visiting England from America in a month’s time. In that time, Lance and Shiro had brought Kuro out to play thrice more, and each time proved more comfortable for the both of them. 

Additionally, the next Sunday, while Ali Baba and Hóngyù Saluja decided to visit Coran Wimbleton-Smythe and Slav Gunderson, Rolo and Polly Beauregard had found time from their busy schedule to visit Lance and Shiro and brought their son Blakeney.

“Father, it’s wonderful to see you in such high spirits.  You look the most relaxed you’ve been since marrying Lance,” Polly said, giving Shiro a smile.  She then pulled Lance into a hug and teasingly added, “Hopefully you’re not overtaxing my father’s time with your new business.  Speaking of which, Rolo receives nothing but compliments whenever he wears that suit you tailored for him.”

Shiro stared Lance down to prevent him from too obviously smirking at the first half of Polly’s declaration.

“You appear to be positively glowing, Polly.  What’s your secret?” Lance said, teasing her right back.

“Well,” Polly said, unconsciously letting a hand slip to her belly, “Rolo and I have been blessed with another child on the way and–”

“You and Rolo are already–”

“Congratulations, my darling girl!” Shiro said, and he got up to hug her but stopped right before he could. Polly’s eyes had lit up for a single second, but upon seeing her father’s hesitation, they lost their flicker. 

“You do know a hug won’t hurt my baby, correct?”

Shiro, having realized his mistake, said, “Yes, but–”

“Even with that iron arm on you, it won’t hurt.” Much to Polly’s disappointment, Shiro still stayed back.  Lance gave Shiro a quizzical look, but then thought better than to ask the question on the tip of his tongue:  _ why didn’t you hug your daughter? _

Lance then proceeded to thank every god he could think of that Rolo had been there, for it was he who brought up the next topic of conversation, a few particularly entertaining days spent with baby Blakeney during the holiday. This then prompted Lance to talk about their own holiday at Altea Park and Shiro to playfully stop Lance from mentioning the delights of Christmas night. 

After Rolo and Polly left with considerably lighter spirits than Shiro had feared his faux pas would have created, Lance grabbed the teapot Rei had filled, turned to Shiro and asked, pouring a cup for each of them, “I noticed you didn’t hug Polly when she came to you. Why was that?”

Shiro sat on the couch and sadly said, “She looked just like her mother right then.”

“And why would that be an issue?”

“I suppose I should tell you the full story of Polly’s mother, Florona,” Shiro said, patting the spot next to him on the couch. He then began, “Florona Swanson was, at the time Polly was conceived, engaged to a man named Blakeney Plaxumworth, a wealthy man with rumors of deviance around his head.”

Lance waggled his eyebrows and asked, “What sort of deviance are we talking about here? Zarkonson-level deviance, or–”

Shiro waved his hand dismissively and said, “Certainly nothing near that. The rumors at that time were that he had a male lover he had wanted to marry instead, but his and his lover’s more traditional families refused to approve of their marriage.” 

“So Mr. Plaxumworth’s so-called deviance was him simply being in love with a man, then? Why didn’t he and his lover just elope, then–”

Shiro narrowed his eyes and said, “Lance, you are focusing on the wrong details of this story.”

“But we’re happily married, right? And–” Upon seeing the look on Shiro’s face, Lance chuckled nervously and said, “Yeah I’ll get myself back on track. Who was Florona to you?”

Shiro sighed and said, “Florona was the governess who taught me practically everything I know about music. I was young, and I fell hard and fast for her, and when I found out she was to marry another, a man who she didn’t love and who probably didn’t even love her, I was devastated, and I told her so.”

Lance sat up straighter and asked, “And how did she react to that?”

“She told me after my confession that she wanted to give her virginity to someone who loved her, and I… oh I loved her indeed.  So you can probably guess what happened from there.”

Lance said, listing each event with a finger pointed out and shaking the fourth finger he let out, “You and Florona made love, she got pregnant, you got sent away to military school, and whatever happened to Florona?”

Shiro laughed fondly and said, “You got most of it right. The first two you got exactly right, but the third needs some elaboration. When the news came out that Florona had gotten pregnant with another man, Blakeney’s lover attempted to argue a divorce over it, and I was willing to take responsibility for what I did and marry her should the divorce proceed. However, Blakeney’s family was adamant that they stay together, and, oddly enough, both Florona and Blakeney were ecstatic at the chance to raise Polly together, even without the sort of conjugal union that blesses most marriages. And of course my parents were scandalized by the possibility of their son and heir marrying a governess.”

Lance scooted closer to Shiro and asked, “So what happened to Florona after you were sent away?”

Shiro’s gaze grew sad as he concluded, “She lived a decently happy life with Blakeney, and when Polly was eight, they both died of an illness that had come to their home.  Florona’s last request was that I take care of her, and that I did… I fear I did it poorly.”

Lance placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and said, “I don’t think you did too badly.”

“She got knocked up by the worst man we know while I was at war.”

A muttered “Perhaps the worst man  _ you _ know, but–” escaped Lance’s lips before he added, hoping to let that utterance never be mentioned again, “Polly’s married to the man she loves, she works with him at the career she loves while raising a kid and having another one on the way. You’re a better father than you think, Shiro.”

_ “Then why is their son’s name Blakeney?” _

Lance sighed; he hadn’t expected that to hurt Shiro so much. In retrospect, he probably should have. Thus, as carefully as he could, Lance replied, “His name is Blakeney Takashi Beauregard.  Ali Baba and Hóngyù have asked me if they should change their names while they’re here to something more English to make their lives easier. Polly and Rolo probably took that into regard when naming their child, Shiro.”

“I certainly hope Florona sees Polly’s life the way you do,” Shiro said, slumping into the couch and looking up at the ceiling. 

After a silence that lasted long enough for both of them to finish their previously untouched cups of tea, Lance asked, “Is Florona always going to be a ghost in our lives?”  _ Am I her poor replacement? _ was the question Lance would not speak aloud and the question Shiro still heard. 

“Florona was my first love, and a small part of my heart will always belong to her,” Shiro said, but before Lance’s heart could break even the slightest bit about it, he added, “But you, Lance… you’ve become the great love of my life.”

“And you, you’ve become the great love of mine,” Lance said, slumping in relief and attempting to nuzzle into Shiro’s chest.

“Are you sure about that?” Shiro, thinking of the way Lance seemed to blossom under Hóngyù and Ali Baba’s affectionate gazes, unthinkingly said.

Lance immediately tensed once more and got up from the couch, his eyes easily betraying his hurt, confusion and offense. He growled, “What do you mean by that, Shiro?”

Shiro sighed. He had to tread this ground carefully, had to be honest with both Lance and himself, lest the hurt in Lance’s eyes turn into anger or worse, turn into that vicious insecurity Lance refused to admit he still held. “I’ve seen the way Ali Baba and Hóngyù stare at you when they know you’re not looking, that odd look filled with what ifs and maybe stills that shouldn't bother me so much as it does.”

Lance blinked thrice, then shook his head and asked, “Wait, you mean to tell me that Ali Baba and Hóngyù Saluja, the most passionately devoted and pointedly monogamous couple I know besides us, are trying to get me to join their marriage bed?”

“Yes!” Shiro shouted, and he would have laughed at the way Lance’s jaw dropped if the situation didn’t have the potential to turn so dire. “They’ve been patently obvious about it to everyone, except you, apparently.”

Lance’s hurt began to fade by way of a grin as he said, a chuckle in his voice, “Shiro, not everyone I befriend wants to bed me–”

“When they ask you to join their marriage bed for a night, will you say yes?”

It was then that Lance knew he had to be honest too, lest Shiro’s fledgling jealousy fester and threaten either their marriage or Lance’s dear friendship. It was the least Lance could give Shiro after his candid answer with regards to Florona. For once he weighed his words carefully and said, taking Shiro’s hands into his own, “I probably would have said yes to them a long time ago, if I had seen they were interested back then, when we first knew each other and Ali Baba and Hóngyù Saluja were still Ali Baba Saluja and Hóngyù Ren, but I have you now. And I love  _ you _ . And I don’t want to give you up. So no, Shiro. I wouldn’t join their marriage bed if they asked.”

It was Shiro’s turn for his eyes to be filled with tears, and he said happily, “You really mean that, don’t you?”

“Darling, don’t you realize that I will always be yours?” Lance purred into Shiro’s ear, straddling him on the couch and peppering kisses down his neck.

“I think I’m beginning to,” Shiro purred right back, and his prosthetic arm slipped under Lance’s shirt, making him gasp as a finger scraped his nipple.  “Lance, I’m so sorry I–”

Lance held the arm to his chest, saying, “For crying out loud, Shiro, keep touching me there, just like that, or you will have reason to be sorry–”

The sound of someone knocking at the door could be heard. “Your brother-in-law, Keith Kogane, is at the door.  Should I let him in?” Rei asked.

Shiro and Lance sat up, untangled themselves from each other and looked at each other in surprise; Allura and Keith had left for London less than a week ago, what would Keith be doing back in their corner of England? And without Allura at that?!

Lance sighed melodramatically, buttoning up his shirt and watching Shiro leave the room, “Let him in, he must have known we were about to make love and wished to ruin my life once again, that’d explain why he’s not with Allura right now, maybe I can punch him in the face now without her stopping me–”

“Where’s Allura?” Shiro asked, shuffling a Keith that looked about to explode inside the parlor.

“She’s at Leonidus with Coran and Slav right now, recovering from another so-called doctor’s latest attempt to treat my wife’s supposed infertility. I’m beginning to tire of these doctors always prescribing treatments to Allura, always implying that it’s  _ Allura _ who needs to change or to adjust herself in order to get pregnant,” Keith said, his voice getting louder and angrier by the word.

Lance joined in, noticing that Keith had been shaking the entire time, “Yeah, the guy prescribing bloodletting between Allura’s legs really needed a punch to the dick–”

“Lance!”

“I wholeheartedly agree with Lance here, Shiro,” Keith said, slumping onto their couch, his head hung low between his knees.  He said to the ground just loud enough for Shiro and Lace to hear, “Allura nearly  _ died _ from this treatment. Polly and Rolo are at Leonidus right now and they’re the only reason she’s alive. And the worst part of all this is I think the one who’s infertile is me.”

“Keith….”

Tears began to run down Keith’s face as he said, “I don’t know why none of the doctors have thought about it; Allura’s perfectly healthy, well, she is whenever the doctors don’t try their stupid ideas, she’s regular in ways I didn’t even need to know about, and yet we’re still childless. Why haven’t they tested  _ me _ ?”

Shiro rubbed Keith’s back and asked, “Would they even know how to test you for infertility?”

Keith was outright sobbing as he said, “I’m sick of Allura constantly apologizing to me for something that’s probably not even her fault.  It hurts to hear my wife, the most magnificent woman in the world, hear from far too many people that she’s not good enough for me because we don’t have a child yet and she won’t even  _ talk _ to me some nights and I don’t know why–”

Lance placed a hand on Keith’s chest and said, “Let me clarify something. You don’t blame Allura for this?”

Keith turned fiercely to him and said, “Of course not, weren’t you listening?”

Lance grabbed Keith’s shoulders, stared him straight in the eyes and said, “Please tell her everything you have told me, Keith, because Allura thinks you blame her too.” Keith’s eyes widened in panic, and Lance continued, “And even with everyone else faulting her for this, the thought of you blaming her breaks her heart the most.”

After a series of reassurances from both Shiro and Lance, Keith said, “I know you’re going to laugh about what I’m going to say next, Lance, but even I know I can’t punch everyone in the world for insulting her.”

Lance fondly ruffled Keith’s hair and said, “I won’t laugh now, Keith. Maybe later, once things have gotten better and you’re complaining to me about how annoying yours and Allura’s children are, but not now.”

Keith blinked thrice and said, “That… was really kind of you.”

Lance let out an indignant squawk and said, “I can be nice once in awhile, Mullet!”

“More like once every blue moon,” Keith teased. Still, Keith slumped into Lance’s arms and murmured thank yous to the ceiling.

“Look, I’m cradling you in my arms, Keith,” Lance said playfully, “Who’d have thought I’d ever care for any brother-in-law of mine enough to do that?”

“You two act less like gentlemen around each other than any two brothers-in-law I have ever met,” Shiro said, pulling Lance away from Keith into his lap and kissing the back of his neck, “I’m almost threatened.”

Lance gasped happily, and as he began to wriggle in Shiro’s lap, Keith sat up and stared askance at them and said to Shiro, “Lance has corrupted you, a fine upstanding Colonel, and made you into I don’t even know what.”

Lance laughed and said, “Yeah, in another reality, we’re probably bedding each other regularly–ow, OW!  You bit me twice, Shiro, what was that for?!”

Shiro smirked into Lance’s neck and began to lick it, saying, “Once for getting the image of you and Keith together in my head, and the second one’s for indicating you’ve willingly spent more than a minute talking with Slav.”

“Oh for crying out loud, Slav’s not that bad a person to talk with.”

“I have to agree with Shiro, he is so annoying,” Keith said. “I’m halfway here because he kept rambling on and on about alternate realities where we’re exploring other planets and fighting purple demons.”

“Oh, that’s the one where he’s the lovechild of a worn and a bird, isn’t it?”

“You’ve kept track?” Keith and Shiro asked at once. 

“Shiro I think you need to bite him again.”

Before he could, however, Hóngyù and Ali Baba ran frantically into the house, prompting Keith and Shiro to stand up and awkwardly offer their empty seats to Hóngyù and Ali Baba. Lance gave a start at their condition and called out for Rei, who promptly ran into the room and also began to panic.

“There was a man under your window, listening to your conversation!” Ali Baba said, sporting a black eye, “And he was really ugly too, had this obnoxious wooden arm and everything–oh not like yours is a problem, Shiro, it’s made of metal–”

“Ali Baba, now’s not the time!” Lance hissed, grateful that Shiro wasn’t quite listening to Ali Baba’s words in his haste to ensure his guests’ welfare. 

Hóngyù continued, “And then the man propositioned me so crudely and Ali Baba, my sweet darling, bravely defended my honor and got that horrible bruise on his face.”

“What Hóngyù didn’t mention was that after I got my black eye, she managed to drive the hulking brute off with one of her hairpins!” Ali Baba said as Rei frantically placed some medicine on his face, sighing lovingly right afterward, “Hóngyù truly is an incredible woman.”

“You mean Zachary Sendak was here?!” Lance said angrily.

“Oh, so that’s his name!” Hóngyù said. “He certainly isn’t decent company. And I’m sorry to make such an early leave of this conversation, but Ali Baba and I certainly need some rest after that particular bout of excitement.”

Lance nodded, and as Ali Baba and Hóngyù prepared for bed, Shiro asked, locking the doors with extreme prejudice and directing Rei to help the Salujas to their room, “Why would Zachary Sendak of all people be listening in our our conversation?”

“I don’t know,” Keith said a few minutes later when he, Shiro and Lance were alone in the parlor room, “I really don’t know.”


End file.
